Category: Medicine

Accra, – Elijeko Foundation, a Non-Profit Health Organisation based in Ghana, plans to initiate a trainers training workshop for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Instructors.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation is a lifesaving hands-only technique that is useful in many emergencies, such as a heart attack, particularly where someone’s breathing, or heartbeat has stopped.

Madam Celestina Kalor Abapiri, the Country Director of Elijeko Foundation, said this hands-only CPR applied to both untrained bystanders and first responders.

Madam Abapiri made this known in a statement during a CPR Training workshop in Kumasi for some selected professionals, who were members of the Kumasi Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industries in the Ashanti Region.

She said it had become necessary to train more people from different locations in Ghana to augment the skill of saving lives under emergency circumstances, especially issues relating to heart attacks.

The Country Director said the Foundation planned to undertake the project in partnership with the US-based Global Mission Readiness, a non-profit organisation that provides emergency services in education and resources to public safety agencies worldwide.

“Selected community volunteers will be trained on Emergency Medical Services, Basic Water Rescue Training, Rope Rescue and Vehicle Extrication through partnership with organizations like Global Mission Readiness and other fire departments in the United States and Canada,” Madam Kalor Abapiri said.

Madam Kalor Abapiri said they recently launched the Pre-Hospital Emergency Training in Kumasi, and it became necessary that they focus on “train the trainer” programmes so that more people would be trained to provide bystander CPR education in their local communities to help others acquire this critical health and basic lifesaving skills.

She said currently in Ghana, there was a limited number of CPR Instructors, so the Foundation had taken it upon itself to train more people and they were going to train other persons with little or no knowledge at all about CPR matters.

Mr. Andrews Kwabena Nyantakyi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation said his organisation had worked with Global Mission Readiness in previous years to train NADMO volunteers and first responders in Afigya Kwabre District, Sekyere Afram Plains and Bosomtwe Constituency.

“The Foundation has opened discussions with Global Mission Readiness to help develop the ‘train the trainer’ concept so that many can receive information needed to provide effective CPR intervention, while sending some selected individuals to the United States for future training,” he added.

Mr. Nyantakyi said a U.K based bookseller called AwesomeBooks had pledged to support the Foundation’s efforts to ensure that everyone in Ghana was equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to intervene in medical emergencies.

Miss Sannah Maan, the Head of Impact and Giving at AwesomeBooks, said her company had worked closely with the Foundation since 2011 in Ghana to donate books to schools in the Ashanti Region and was excited to support the Foundation’s initiative to make healthcare knowledge accessible to Ghanaians.

Mr. Kwaku Sarpong, the Operations Manager, at Prudential Bank Adum Branch in Kumasi, expressed optimism and appreciated the Foundation for the initiative.

“This training is indeed an eye-opening programme to CPR because it is not common and also not something we teach in our various schools. It is very important because with that little knowledge, you can at least save some lives,” Mr. Sarpong added.

He appealed to the Foundation to provide the training to the public in partnership with the Ghana Red Cross Society to create more awareness on the CPR Training to save more lives.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, – Parliament Tuesday passed the National Vaccine Institute Bill, 2022 to facilitate the production of vaccines in Ghana.

The Bill intends to establish a National Vaccine Institute to coordinate and supervise the research, development and manufacture of vaccines and sera in Ghana.

The lack of a sustainable supply of vaccines to fight against diseases in the country had informed the establishment of the National Vaccine Institute.

Ghana established the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in 1978, afterwards, the programme received substantial financial and technical assistance from Gavi, the vaccine alliance.

Currently, Gavi supports over 89 per cent of the cost of vaccines and vaccine delivery within the country.

However, Ghana had attained the lower middle-income country status and is expected to transition from Gavi support by the year 2027.

Consequently, the country needed to be self-reliant, especially in the domestic development and manufacture of vaccines and sera.

A memorandum chaperoning the Bill explained that the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic had ravaged global health systems and economies.

Since Ghana recorded the first two cases in March 2020, she had not been spared the negative impact of COVID-19 on public health and socio-economic lives.

“The emergence of new variants of COVID-19 has also put the country in a state of uncertainty.

“Although the world now has COVID-19 vaccines to help fight the pandemic, there has been inadequate deployment in Africa due to limited manufacture capacity and global supply chain challenges,” it said.

The memorandum noted that vaccine nationalism also remained a challenge to achieving satisfactory immunity for adequate protection for the targeted population.

As of September 14, 2021, it said Ghana had fully vaccinated only 5.1 per cent of the population, a far cry from the national target of 66 per cent of Ghanaians needed to achieve herd immunity.

Additionally, it said domestic vaccine development and manufacture were needed to aid in the fight against communicable diseases such as malaria, Cholera, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis, which continued to be a burden on the country.

The memorandum pointed out that the Government of Ghana’s policy direction of “Ghana Beyond Aid” also highlighted the need to chart the route towards self-reliance to boost economic development.

Owing to the above, it said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo set up a Presidential Committee on Vaccine Development and Manufacturing to bring to life the vision of domestic vaccine manufacturing.

The committee held extensive engagements with stakeholders relevant to the development and manufacture of vaccines in Ghana and assessed the country’s capacity for vaccine development and manufacture.

“The committee recommended the establishment of a National Vaccine Institute to coordinate the manufacture and development of vaccines and sera in the country,” it said.

The President, during his 26th update on July 25, 2021, on measures taken by the Government on COVID-19 prevention, announced that a National Vaccine Institute would be established with a seed fund of $25 million per the recommendation of the Presidential Committee on Vaccine Development and Manufacturing.

“The National Vaccine Institute, is thus ,expected to operationalise government’s vision of securing the much-needed vaccines through domestic vaccine development and manufacturing in the short, medium- and long-term phases,” the memorandum said.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, Feb.14, GNA – The Chief Executive Officer of the National Blood Service, Dr Shirley Owusu Ofori, has encouraged Ghanaians to use special occasions such as the Valentine’s Day to donate blood and save lives.

She said voluntary blood donation was one of the ways to exhibit love to those with medical conditions which required blood transfusions.

Dr Ofori thus urged the public to patronise avenues of donation such as the MTN Ghana Foundation’s Annual Blood Donation which resumed this year after a two-year long break due to COVID-19.

“We celebrate the Valentine’s Day which is already an occasion to demonstrate love to friends and family. 12 years ago in 2011, MTN Ghana Foundation partnered the National blood Service; they used the occasion to raise public awareness on the need for safe blood and blood products for transfusion. It is also an opportunity that has been used for society to give back especially those who have benefited from blood before.” She said.

Dr Ofori cited the story of a 14-year-old Australian boy, Joseph Harrison, and a story of a 35-year-old queen mother who survived because she also received 24 units of blood transfusions at 37 Military Hospital to stress the need to voluntary donate blood to save more lives.

“Joseph Harrison benefited from blood during a lung surgery which saw him hospitalized for three months. This led him to become a regular blood and blood plasma donor in later life for more than ten years after recovery and helped save 2.4 million children, eventually earning him the title: ‘the man with the golden arm.” She said in a speech.

She urged MTN Foundation to strengthen this initiative as it contributes to the blood stock levels of the country.

The Ghana News Agency engaged some staff and members of the public that trooped in to participate in the exercise.

Madam Love Adiamah, an IT Specialist at MTN, said the motivation to constantly donate blood was embedded in an accident encountered by a close friend some time ago.

“I have had an experience where a friend had an accident and was admitted at the 37 Military Hospital for three months. Just by the fact that, I was a donor, they got blood for him. My sister has given birth twice and they asked for blood transfusion for each one. These have inspired me to donate each time there is an opportunity,” she said.

“I donated once, that was back on campus. This time around, I went to the hospital, and I was encouraged by the doctor to donate my old blood to help my body produce new cells, so I took this opportunity to come and donate.” Charlotte Werrebor, a compliance officer, said.

On her part, Rhodaline Mensah, the Sustainability & Social Impact Manager at MTN Ghana Foundation, commended partners and stakeholders for the participation in the annual ‘save a life’ blood donation campaign.

“We want to thank everyone for making time to be part of our vision to support the national blood service in Ghana and all the partner hospitals that we have engaged with over the years. Indeed, we appreciate your contribution and the loyalty of all stake holders involved in making this initiative a success,” she said.

‘Save a life’ campaign was instituted by MTN Foundation in 2011 to help stock the blood banks across the country. The blood donation exercise, since its inception, has yielded over 20,000 units of blood, helping to reduce maternal mortality nationwide.

This year’s campaign, currently ongoing in all 16 regions of Ghana, is projected to achieve 4000 units of blood from voluntary donors.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Koforidua, – Dr Arko Akoto-Ampaw, the Medical Director of the Eastern Regional Hospital, has advised citizens to have their blood counts checked at least once a year to avoid Polycythemia.

He explained polycythemia as an abnormal increase in the number of red blood cells, a primary or secondary condition that is typically associated with lung or heart disease.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Dr Akoto-Ampaw said polycythemia was a serious health condition that could kill within hours if not treated on time.

Everyone, depending on age and sex, has a range at which the haemoglobin level should usually be, an excess of which one is said to have polycythemia.

Patients who suffered polycythemia, Dr Akoto-Ampaw said, stood the risk of possible blood clots in the blood vessels, stroke and organ failures such as stale lungs.

Management of polycythemia, he said, was based on the cause; however, one of the immediate ways was to bleed the patients off the excess blood.

Although blood donation could be another means of managing polycythemia, Dr Akoto-Ampaw noted that the donated blood could not be administered to a patient if the cause of the condition resulted from the abnormal growth of cells.

He, therefore, advised citizens to visit health facilities at least once a year to run a general check-up since the symptoms of polycythemia are similar to other health conditions.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Cape Coast, Feb 12, GNA – The Cape Coast Teaching Hospital (CCTH), in collaboration with the Himalayan Cataract Project (Cure blindness), a US-based foundation working to end blindness, has successfully performed free cataract surgeries on more than 1,250 people to save them from total blindness.

The five-day health exercise is the largest single cataract intervention in Ghana.

The surgical procedures were undertaken by nine ophthalmologists, including an American, who spent an average of eight minutes on each patient depending on the severity of their condition.

The intervention, held every four months, is also used to train young doctors and nurses of the hospital to sharpen their skills to help end blindness.

Dr Geoffery Tabin, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Project, said the goal of the exercise was to overcome “needless” blindness in the world.

He indicated that at least, 80 per cent of the patients would have perfect vision right after the surgery but a few might not see perfectly due to other undetected eye conditions such as glaucoma.

He explained that old age, poor nutrition, long exposure to smoke and direct sunlight were some major risk factors for cataract.

Dr Tabin, who is also a Professor of Ophthalmology in Global Medicine, Stanford University, observed that blindness from treatable cataract was common in Ghana mainly due to the lack of adequate specialists.

He said cataract was not normal in children but had become unfortunately common.

However, he noted, that there were only two specialists for children’s cataract in the whole country for which reason most children did not get care.

He said even though the number and quality of doctors and specialists had improved over the past decade, there was the urgent need to train more of them to deal with the backlog of variety of eye conditions in the country.

“Ten years ago, when you had a retinal detachment, you had to go to America or India to have surgery, but now there are six retinal specialists in Ghana.

“Six retinal specialists for 30 million people is not enough. We need to have at least 50 retinal doctors,” Dr Tabin noted.

He said a construction of an eye hospital at CCTH to be affiliated to the University of Cape Coast was on course and would train exceptional young doctors, nurses and assistants to create a sustaining programme.

Dr Eric Kofi Ngedu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the hospital, said cataract was among the top five eye conditions reported in the hospital over the years.

He, therefore, labelled the collaboration with Cure Blindness as extremely critical and life-saving.

He said the hospital since 2019, through the collaboration, had expanded and increased eye care service delivery in the Region.

So far, they had visited 1,050 communities and done 261 outreaches in which 54,142 patients were screened and 5,894 surgeries were successfully performed.

Dr Ngedu further indicated that about six staff of the hospital had been trained as experts in quality eye care delivery.

He expressed gratitude to Cure Blindness for the partnership and to government for granting waivers on the surgical tools and equipment for the exercise.

Source: Ghana News Agency